Law and the Limits of Reason

Adrian Vermeule

Now in paperback, Vermeule provides for scholars and students an invaluable discourse on how the legal and political system is limited by the processing capacity of the brain, by errors arising from cognitive heuristics, by the intrinsic costs of information, and sometimes by emotions.

Questions what's behind the curtain of "settled practices" or "legal rules" and asks to what extent are these in fact a constellation of less-than-rational judgments?

Provides a signal contribution to one of the hottest topics in contemporary democratic theory, "epistemic democracy."

Law and the Limits of Reason

Adrian Vermeule

Description

Human reason is limited. What are the consequences of this fact for the contested lawmaking claims between courts, legislatures and the executive branch? In light of the limits of reason, how should legal institutions be designed? In Law and the Limits of Reason, Adrian Vermeule criticizes the view that the limits of reason counsel in favor of judicial lawmaking in the style of the common law. He argues that there is no logical connection between the limits of reason, on the one hand, and the superiority of common law or of judge-made constitutional law on the other. The relatively small number of judges on relevant courts, their limited informational base and generalist rather than specialized skills, ensure that judicial reason is itself sharply limited and that
the argument to judicial lawmaking from the limits of reason outruns the logical, causal, and evidentiary support.

Instead, Adrian Vermeule proposes and defends a "codified constitution" - a regime in which legislatures have the primary authority to develop constitutional law over time, through statutes and constitutional amendments. Precisely because of the limits of human reason, large modern legislatures, with their numerous membership, complex internal structures for processing information and their abundant informational resources, are the most effective lawmaking institutions. Law and the Limits of Reason, now in paperback, serves as a thought-provoking companion to any constitutional law course of study.

Law and the Limits of Reason

Adrian Vermeule

Author Information

Adrian Vermeule is the John H. Watson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Before joining the Harvard faculty, he previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School for seven years, where he was twice awarded with the Graduating Students' Award for Teaching Excellence. He also served as a clerk to Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.